Nikon D7000 firmware update 1.01 is out

Update: you may have to run the firmware update twice in order to get rid of all "bright spots". Here are three examples: before the update, after the first update and after the second update (.mov files may take a while to load).

I think nikon make cameras that last in time (after nearly 4 years I still use my D40 several times a week), and adding those feature would surely extend this life expectancy, since I won’t have to upgrade in near future

thanks for your answers

gailledrat

oops didn’t saw spiral sun answer just below…
if this firmware encrypted, then we rely on you Mr Nikon. Please add those feature, make us happy

Peter B

so now is it possible for one to hack the D7000?

Paul

What? Do you even know what you’re asking?
Why would it be any different now that there is a firmware upgrade?

SpiralSun

It’s easier to reverse engineer / hack the firmware if you have a firmware file to work with… Unfortunately it seems that the D7000 firmware file is somehow encrypted/encoded (as opposed to the D300 and D70 firmware files which were plain – you could see the strings in the firmware) and there is no information about the processors, so it’s still very hard to figure anything out.

http://nikonrumors.com/ [NR] admin

the official release date is December 22, tomorrow

ricemanhk

well it’s Dec 22 in Tokyo

but BRAVO Nikon! I had two bright red pixels in the middle for any movies shot over 800 ISO from a cold start (and they’re quite faint even at 200 ISO)…now there’s none to be found even at 6400 in a dark room! movie mode is restored!

Gaurav

Was looking forward for this update. I am sirprised… Nikon uses word ‘reduced’. Is it not 100% gone? Guys… please report if it is successful in doing any magic.

Joe D

As a lawyer, I can say, that is just lawyer cya speak

GlobalGuy

They fixed one or more problems. But they do not guarantee to fix ALL problems with one update. Obviously if a pixel is “broken” they couldn’t fix it through software. But for any pixel that functions (even if extra brightly/hot), they probably found a way to turn it down a notch or two.

TripleAlphaProcess

Lol, Joe. I have a friend who is an attorney and that sounds about right. Better to cover their asses and say its reduced than to say its completely gone. Nikon can just return, legitimately, their complaints with ‘read what was fixed again please.’ haha

jonnyapple

Absolutely, Joe.
The stuck pixels are 100% gone from my videos. I should mention that I had to install the update twice to get it to remove the stuck pixels. Bizarre, I know…

gt

Get real – hot pixels happen. Expecting 100% perfection is ridiculous

Furthermore, why does it seem like no one uses their camera in normal, real-life conditions. I have friends shooting their d7000s in dark concert venues with no issues whatsoever. It’s only the pixel peepers / test-chart-junkies who get hung up over this stuff

francois

Too right.

This hot pixels “issue” is just a storm in a teacup really – I don’t really see them being a big deal in practical use , unless you shoot photos and videos with the lens cap firmly on 😉

What is more of a problem however is if they were stuck pixels .

Funduro

What ! I need to take off the lens protector doohickey?

Ronan

Agree 100%.

http://kishorephoto.blogspot.com Kishore

anyone installed this yet ?
I am wondering if the upgrade would reset the shutter count ?

GlobalGuy

No it wouldn’t. Nikons shutter counts don’t get reset through updates.

nathun.

just did the update and im happy to say it works. i had 3 bright spots before and now i can see none! i know 3 isnt as bad as compare to some other ones out there but it worked this well for me so doesnt hurt to try.

Jumbonas

Is the pixels the only fix? I have a af switch(?) problem where the af mode turns to manual for no reason. Will download in the am. Jumbo

Stranger

Jumbonas.
I had the same issue when I first got my camera a couple of months back. Took it to a camera engineer acquaintance of mine and he cleaned the contacts with a contact cleaner pen, on both the camera body and the lenses.
The problem never occured again.
He said that’s because cameras have some residual ‘oil’ or ‘vaseline’ on their contacts when they ship.
Hope that helps.

Mk32

Eeven though i didn’t notice any hot pixels, I am going to install this. Thanks for the heads up NR.

Raghavan

Upgraded to this..it DIDNT remove the two Blue HotSpots I had, thankfully it didnt add more..so happy with that atleast!

GlobalGuy

Do you have a video link as evidence so others can see what youre seeing?

Raghavan

Tried the second upgrade(or was it becoz I had switched off n started the cam again I wonder). Seems to have resolved the issue a bit, as in, the hot pixel is not hot anymore just a stuck pixel now…its there but no as bright as it used to be ! I have a more toned down version of the same pixel now! anyways, I am not too bothered as its just one for me n way off centre(top right)

Nkon D7000 kit is ..

//I have no ability to check

my dispatch with D7000 was lost by USPS

http://www.phonetransact.com Cliff

No change… one hot green pixel in the center. Ugh!

Tom

You should try to “upgrade” it again. Might work. Did for me anyways.

jonnyapple

+1

http://eleventhphotograph.com elph

While its updating. Does anyone else have an issue with focusing in darker areas? Is it a common problem in most cameras for that matter? Like the focus will be at close distance, I try to focus and the thing just dashes to infinity. Try to focus again and the focus dashes back to close. Its at those points where I need to manual focus in the dark situations.

Also Nikon, you provided an update for a small “problem”, but I’m still looking for the firmware update that allows manual aperture during liveview, and 60fps at 720p mode. That’s *all* I humbly ask for.

Ok, update done. The 3-4 red pixels that I had during Hi ISO seem to be totally gone during liveview/video, which is superb. But photos tend to still have a few, but I don’t really care since I won’t be taking photos at that high ISO anyways. In fact, I see no bad pixels at 6400 ISO, and only a single white one at the lower left side at Hi 1. To me, this is considered fixed and done. Not that it ever posed a big problem to me in the first place.

Now get working on my requests Nikon! Thanks!

Matt

Have you tried turning on the autofocus assist light while focusing in darker areas?

http://eleventhphotograph.com elph

I turned that off since I prefer to have it off to save battery, and it won’t bother people’s eyes when applicable. I mean I can turn it back on when desperate, but wondering if its a common problem.

gt

lol . so you turned off AF-assist…and are trying to autofocus in a dark area…and you don’t know why it’s not working?

Sounds like a defective unit to me. Perhaps you should send it back to Nikon with a short rant

Seshan

LOL.

Ronan

elph have you tried to turn ON the AF-assist? I mean… it might be that since its off… its having issue AF in a dark area.

Just a wild guess…

Funduro

“I turned that off since I prefer to have it off to save battery, and it won’t bother people’s eyes when applicable. I mean I can turn it back on when desperate,. . . .” — Huh? ( (shaking head)) ) )

http://eleventhphotograph.com elph

What, you don’t understand? Makes sense to me. My question was if the issues occurs with other people, and with different cameras.

Funduro

Try to understand, the comments are actually giving you solutions and advice, it’s up to you after it’s given. You want confirmation, not a solution to your “issue”. Present it as a question, like: Does my camera have a problem or am I doing something wrong? Or is there a work around? BTW online comment treads can get brutal.

http://eleventhphotograph.com elph

There is a question posed in my original post…
I was aware of the AF light from the start, and as stated, wanted to know if other people have similar experiences, and to what extent. I wan’t stating that I had a problem with my camera. Tis all~

gt

here’s your answer:

Yes.

Other cameras behave the same way if you use them in the same stupid way that you have decided to use your camera

Dan

Me thinks the defect is the link between the viewfinder and the shutter-release button :p

Paul

haha

http://micahmedia.com Micah

+1

http://www.videographerinloscabos.com Carlos Plazola

Mine does not have any hot pixels… should i update?

Mik

yes

http://www.videographerinloscabos.com Carlos Plazola

Listo! I updated nicely, only 6 minutes and it`s a go…. I was hoping to pump up the video too with more frames per second but I guess that`s gonna be another time for that… maybe another firmware later?

http://www.nathandailo.com/ Nathan Dailo

Haven’t had this issue yet, but will go and update anyway.

Tom

The update didn’t work the first time I tried. But I hit the upgrade button again to “upgrade” from 1.01 to 1.01. And it worked the second time around, not a hot pixel in sight. :]

George Richardson

I had this same issue. Re-updated a second time and the hot pixels are all gone.

It did not reset the shutter count.

Souelle

Work for me

Chris

Where’s the update that makes the camera not require micro-focus adjustments with all of my AF-S lenses?

Souelle

Maybe your hands need a new firmware, not the camera 😛

jonnyapple

There’s a way to set a default offset in the AF fine tuning if it’s happening the same way with all of your lenses.

Eric

I noticed this issue with 3 pixels in Live View, they’re gone post-update.

Mk32

I am thinking , does the update just remap the pixels, since it seems for people that it didn’t fix, re-updating seemed to fixed it.
Just a guess.

GlobalGuy

Yes, it seems that its MAPPING once . Which is interesting. This suggests that if your camera didn’t record it right the first time, you should try again (or even a third time if one got missed).

Additionally, you might consider “updating” the software regularly every 6 months or so of use, if any pixels popup. If its pixel mapping, that should keep you good and might even help with some dust issues(?).

Mk32

Yeah that is what I am thinking, but wouldn’t it be better if everyone if Nikon just added pixel-mapping as an option.
But this is a good enough fix for most people it seems.

The Man from Mandrem

How do you update firmware?
Got my 2nd body from B&H and has at least 1 blue hot pixel at ISO 800 and 1/60″ in video.

The Man from Mandrem

Never mind. Found the post in Forum.

WoutK89

Next time, read the manual as well, and use Nikon’s own website, How to update firemware is on the download page. (at least in Europe it is)

ricemanhk

I don’t think it’s a regular remapping of the sensor as I went to the Nikon service center, had them do a remapping and it didn’t work with movies, although the one or two hot pixels in photos were all gone after the remapping.

Weirdest thing was the hot pixels in movies didn’t correspond to the hot pixels in stills. The service guy told me that it seems like live view/movies didn’t go through the processing engine and thus every hot pixel (even ones remapped at the factory) still get captured. Perhaps the new firmware solves this issue by running it through the mapping of faulty pixels and disables them in the output (which is the case with photos by default)

Anyway all my hot pixels in movies are gone now so I’m a happy camper

http://www.whizarts.com Ke Wynn

Not too sure about the rest but my D7K goes blank (black) during live view and captures nothing. I have to turn off the camera, remove the lens and put it back to get it working again. Any similar experiences?

GlobalGuy

Send it to Nikon for repair/back to retail as defective.

http://dslrmaniac.tumblr.com Radityo Pradipto

Just update mine and it works! I got 3 hot pixels before and it’s completely gone now
Also I found that the back focusing issue is gone now (or at least less obvious) since my previous fine tuning is not accurate anymore. Will do a bit more testing to make sure what setting to put

Jan-Willem v.H

Had a blue pixel in the middle with a couple of red ones to the left, all gone. yes!

abo

I also updated and the my 3 massive green dots are gone so far.

Ty

Assuming the firmware update is indeed kicking off a capture/remap(or change weight), I’d recommend that everyone get their sensor nice and warmed up (eg live view) before [re]updating, as hot pixels are heavily influenced by temperature.

May explain why some are experiencing a failure on the first-time update (cold sensor).

Wilson

I had 3 blue hot pixels and they are all gone both in Live and Video mode.

Thank you Nikon! I was getting worried for a second…

Alexei Karam

Worked great for me Finally I am happy I had constellations of them, like 25 or 30 in liveview and in dark videos and in still photos at iso 1600 and 10 seconds exposure timeI got hundreds of them if I zoom in, now allis gone !!!

What I would like to know is what was exactly done to fix that ??? Could it be that now we get an overall lower quality pictures like having massive noise reduction in all modes ? or all my hot pixels are disabled so I lose detail ?

jonnyapple

This is most likely a very localized fix, and I would think should have minimal effect on overall picture quality. You’re dealing with less than one pixel per million.

http://www.studio64photography.com Marcel T. Cabrera Jr

All the hot pixels are gone from live view/movie mode!

BUT NOT for photos…. seems to have 3 more than the 4 I originally had.

I updated the firmware multiple times (as others have suggested) and no luck…

abo

the firmware is suppose to fix… videos!
besides, applying the firmware several times for sure won’t make not difference at all!

GlobalGuy

Why wouldn’t they apply it to stills? This is so weird. It must soften the image somehow if not applied to stills. So is this update averaging illuminated points of light (canceling out extremes dynamically), or is it pixel mapping from a blank shot??

Mandrake

I had one stuck green pixel before the update and one stuck green pixel after the update.

jonnyapple

Do the update again (see above comments).

The invisible man

It would be interresting to take videos in the dark with white spots and see if the update erase the “real” white spots…..
😮

The invisible man

Like you take a video of the sky at night, and now with the firmware update, no more stars !
😮

http://www.haftbar.de/ BurnumBurnum

Good point. Someone should try.

Ty

wouldn’t work. In the [likely] scenario that the firmware update is creating a table of hot pixels specific to each camera/sensor, it’ll do so with the mirror *down*, just like it does for hi-iso/long exposure.

In other words, it’s simulating a high-iso picture with the lens-cap on. Easy to algorithmically remove the background noise, so it’s left with a black image with the only bright pixels being the ones that are ‘hot’ (whether subtle or extreme/stuck).
Now the camera has a template of what to subtract from the video pipeline.

—

But in all honesty, especially if were talking video, I sorta doubt the camera is creating a per-pixel weighting or adjustment map. It’s probably just ignoring the hot pixels and letting it’s nearest neighbors take up the slack, as one of the first tasks of just about any video compression is to throw away half of the color information anyway, known as YUV 4:2:2, where luminance (Y) is kept at full resolution, but every other column and row of color (chroma, the “U,V”) is tossed (IE, 1/2 the resolution) .. and you never notice.

(I may be a bit rusty on the details)

The invisible man

After reading your comment I have now a headache, I wonder why…

Ty

TMI allergy?

http://www.haftbar.de/ BurnumBurnum

Thanks for the good explanation!

GlobalGuy

The question then is why isn’t it applied to STILL pictures as well? The hot pixels continue to show for stills mode. Would Nikon really apply this only to video?? Or was it so patchy that they didn’t want to mess with the rest of the camera.

Drab

It isn’t applied to STILL pictures because there are much better (and computationally expensive) ways to deal with hot pixels in stills.

Video mode (and therefore live view) also place a much higher duty-cycle on the sensor, so the sensor is much hotter than in still photography. These are true “hot” pixels, and the term comes not from the fact they are hotter (brighter) than average pixels, but from the fact they respond to heat.

So this sort of crude (but quite appropriate for video) fix is NOT NEEDED for STILL pictures.

http://kienwingphotography.blogspot.com CKW

Have recorded movie before and after firmware upgrade..it fixes hot pixels!!

start from 8s you can see red hot pixel appear at 1 o’clock position. In fact, there are three hot pixels, during conversion by vimeo, i believe two are gone…

http://kienwingphotography.blogspot.com CKW

watch it in full screen and three are obvious, 2 red and i blue. I updated once.

GlobalGuy

D7k is to pixel-dense that you must watch videos in HD or minimum full-size to see individual pixels — otherwise Youtube/resizing compresses the image too much and it gets averaged with the nearest pixels.

People keep missing this point when they review even their own videos, which may have hot pixels and they didn’t even know it.

HNR

Neither can I !

http://www.phonetransact.com Cliff

Updated TWICE and my issue is resolved.

cyr

This finally worked perfectly for me (I had about 6-7 hot pixels that started showing up at ISO 800 and up). Now they are all gone, but only after applying the update *three* times. The first two times the camera prompted me to turn it off, the last time I wasn’t looking but it seemed to restart automatically.

No sure what was going on, but I’m very happy with the result now!

Xanadu AW18

Question upgrad from nikon d200 to d7000 or wait for the d400 d800 d700 up date

Matt

Wait for d400

Steve

Depend what you do
If you like walking all day with your camera the D7000 is a better option
The D400 will cost 1000$ more for what? 52 pt AF instead of 39 and a few other option but will not give you much more, except extra weight to carry all day…
Picture quality will be almost the same

If you work in studio or at wedding, then wait for the D800
You will probably get better low light performance, and overall quality
But then again maybe it will not be better then the D700 in low light, maybe worst because it will probably have 24 to 27 megapixel

If you’re not a full time pro, go for the D7000
With the money you save, you better buy good lenses, you will have it for years, but whatever body you buy, it will be obsolete in 2 years

I know many people will tell to go with the D400 or D800
But it’s ridiculous sometimes to see a guy with a D700 and the only lense he have is a cheap piece of crap

The way I see it, good lenses even on a entry level camera can make magic
Bad lenses on a very expensive camera will give you shit

Different

I disagree.

A D3S or D700 with a 50mm 1.8D is better than a D3100 with a 24-70 f2.8.

It’s accurate AF , clean ISO and micro-adjustment my friend.

Michael

well…is d700 obsolete then?

GlobalGuy

No. Not at all. Unless you absolutely need video (buy a P&S though for goodness sakes). D700 still performs better than the D300 series and the D7k.

The gap keeps getting smaller. But the D700 is still relevant, very importantly for night work. People don’t realize that a stop or even a half-stop difference (depending on settings) can make or break a shot at night or under low-light situations.

However, if you shoot your important pictures in full daylight, go for the D7k. The extra resolution under the sun’s rays can be useful.

Dan

That’s exactly what I did and am very satisfied (ie gave the D200 to my daughter and bought a D7000). I was going to wait for the d400/d800 whatever but needed a camera for my upcoming trip to Asia.

While in Taiwan I bought a lens. You should have seen the guys in the shop when they saw the D7K (it wasn’t released there yet). They had to mop the drool of the floor after I left :P. Nice folks though…gave me a discount on the lens

Anyway, I’ll prolly upgrade to whatever Nikon decides is gonna be the D700 replacement when it comes.

rainking

I had 3 red hot pixels and all 3 are gone now. Thanks Nikon!!

Simon B

Me too! I let the sensor warm up in LV for a while like people recommended and it’s worked.
I had more than a dozen red and blue pixels and one green. Update has fixed this.

BenS

more than a dozen faulty pixels ? Sounds like you should have returned it to to the shop in exchange for a new one. a few pixels is ok. But more than a dozen ? Your hard earned money deserves a better Nikon product.

Anyways, well done Nikon for the fix !!!

odoylerules

What’s better?
A) upgrade the firmware
B) get a hardware replacement in a month or two

I have this hot pixel problem. Is it just a quick fix or is this legit. Not sure if I should get a replacement later since Nikon may tweak the hardware?

odoylerules

I just updated my firmware.

RESULTS
– Hot pixels from LCD screen ALL removed
– Hot pixels during movie mode in low light still very visible. Take a look at this http://i53.tinypic.com/5u3pj.jpg. I shot a movie with the lens cap on. Of course both pixels are still visible under low light movies (more so the red one)

Should I get a replacement?

Anton

As mentioned by others you should get your sensor worm (use your camera for awhile), and then burn the firmware again.

GlobalGuy

People are saying that you need to do this up to about 3 times before it works perfectly. The sensor warming might be key. Sensor HEAT creates noise.

Video works by leaving the sensor on (generating a LOT of heat). Thus, there may be an ideal temperature at which to do the fix. As the above guy said “Worm” up your camera, by shooting some video under live view for a few minutes, then do the trick.

http://www.dslreports.com/pics/dimaging/645803?1=1 DeathKnight

Just updated the firmware on mine. Had 3 hot pixels in live view and movies: one bright red, one dimmer blue, and another really dim one that wasn’t really noticeable without pixel-peeping. Only the red one was visible in live view. No hot pixels issues with images.

After the update there are no hot pixels in live view. Just did a test video and there are no hot pixels with videos either!

Thanks Nikon!!!

Mandrake

After applying the FW update a second time it now worked for me….who knew?

jonnyapple

Okay, didn’t see this. Disregard my last comment, Mandrake. Sorry.

Philippe

So I updated but didn’t heat up my sensor. Am I screwed?
The weird thing, it did some tests, I did a small heat-up of 6 minutes recording before updating.
Before I did the actual hotpixel-update, the small blue dot was gone => maybe it’s because it’s winter, last time I used it was during several recordings at a party > hot.

Mock Kenwell

Alright! NR rocking Frederick’s of Hollywood ad banners! LOL!

John

Almost enough to make me turn off my ad block software! LOL!

GlobalGuy

The ad your looking at is most likely the dynamic one chosen by Google and that tracks your web browsing history. This probably says more about your surfing habits than anything about the admin, haha.

Funduro

That ad, it’s from your browsers cookie, not because of NR.

The invisible man

Did you know that your thumbnail (the afgan girl) was took with a kodachrome film ?

Funduro

I didn’t know that, I shot mostly slides back then too. I saw that picture on the cover of National Geographic many years ago. Mesmerized by the eyes. Modern Mona Lisa to me. They had a follow-up story on Nat Geo TV and found her.

Sad Sam

What else did they change/fix?
Is there a way to find out all the detailed versions changes?
What about the reported random folders creation?

John

Apparently no changes to fix the tendency to overexpose in bright sunlight.

Patrick

How about a fix for the “currently back-ordered, no delivery date available”?

John

Frackin’ hiLARious! LOL!

jonnyapple

Try center-weighted instead of matrix metering in those situations. I haven’t had problems.

camaman

What is wrong with this site, Admin?
I need to access it twice on all my devices to get through to it.
Notebooks, iPhone… FF Browser and Safari. They report and error in accessing and I need to refresh to load it.
Noticed this for a few days back.

http://eleventhphotograph.com elph

I thought I was the only one with this problem. I have a similar problem with another webmail site occasionally as well.

WoutK89

could be because of the same reason, my virusscanner detects a threat each time I load either NikonRumors or PhotoRumors.

http://nikonrumors.com/ [NR] admin

clear your browser’s cache and please try it again

PAG

+1

gregorylent

same here, in chrome on mac, often get “site not available” message … try again, it loads

Hamuga

Same issue.
Usually loads the second time.
Sometimes it does not, and I have to try back later.

http://nikonrumors.com/ [NR] admin

please clear your browser’s cache and try it again

VisionART

Pre-update I had three hot pixels (even at ISO 100 having dark circumstances), and after first update all of them remained. Thanks to some posts here, I did not gave up
Second update has solved the problem, now there is no any hotpixel.
THANKS Guys!
UPDATE! :))

http://www.truphotos.com gnohz

I still have problems accessing this site too. Need to reload about 5 times for it to load correctly without the error page

http://nikonrumors.com/ [NR] admin

Do you still have issues accessing the site?

camaman

I have no problems today. Everything seems OK.

GlobalGuy

I usually could only access it on the second try.

But today it worked perfectly in the first shot.

http://nikonrumors.com/ [NR] admin

thanks!

http://www.truphotos.com gnohz

Sorry for the late reply.
Today (24th on my side of the world) looks ok. I could load the page on the first try 😀

http://nikonrumors.com/ [NR] admin

Thanks! Of course everything broke when I am out of town

http://www.truphotos.com gnohz

As alawys lol :p
When kitty is not around, the mice come out to play 😮

http://outlierimagery.com Daniel Schaefer

so before I updated the firmware I had two sets of Hot Pixels, a Clump of about four blue Pixels about an eight of an inch diagonally up from the dead center of the screen, and another single red pixel just below the 2 on the countdown timer.

post firmware update, at first i had a moment of panic, the two initial hotspots were gone, but THREE new hotspots had arisen forming a triangle of pixels all about half an inch apart, two red one blue, all single pixels.

so, trusting Nikons update, I turned off the camera clicked it back on and the pixels were still there, so i tried something odd, starting at 100, i went into live view and rolled through all the different ISO settings, the dots were still aparent for the first three or for settings but then at about 400, the pixels vanished!

I restarted one more time and rolled through every ISO and low and behold, a Clean image!
the firmware update worked splendidly, but you do seem to have to roll through each ISO, turning Live View on and off in between each shift.

hope that was helpful!

Cheers!

Daniel Schaefer

Outlierimagery.com

Joey

No hot pixels prior to update…no hot pixels after either…

JoshL

umm….if i don’t have an SD card reader on my computer…is there a way to upload the file to the SD card through the camera to pc connection?

http://www.jennykphotography.com Jenny

So for those suggesting “warming up” the camera before doing the update, how long should I shoot photos to effectively warm it up? Any suggestions?

Ty

Try 5 minutes or so just sitting in LiveView…that should cook it nicely. Recording video would add a bit more overall….

Jared

another to the chorus, I had 5 stuck pixels ( a couple of red, a couple of blue and a green) and all are no more!!!!